A Vampire in Montreal at the Montreal Comic Con

It really does feel like this year has rushed past at a blistering pace, doesn't it?

I will be a guest of The Montreal Comic Con this coming Sunday on December 5th. I will be selling prints and mini-comics as well as doing commissions and head sketches. As a special promotion, the first hundred guests through the door get a free copy of my new mini-comic, A Vampire in Montreal. I will also have copies for sale at my table.

 

Since Christmas is coming, I'll have a bunch of stuff on special so come by the table and see me.

Here's a birthday card I drew for my dear friend Rich. He's like me, a big Venom fan, and he's also got a great collection of artwork called 'The Boy with the Red Umbrella'. I supplied him with a drawing for that collection two years ago. Happy birthday, buddy.

Just like every Wednesday, we've updated That's So Kraven! This one has a bit of a Venom vibe, too. Check it out. That's So Kraven! Webisode Twenty.

Cory "The Vulture" Baxter

If you've been reading That's So Kraven! (and I sincerely hope you have) then you may have noticed we've added Raven's brother Cory from the show. When trying to decide how to present Cory, Trina and I had a sit-down with our globe-hopping friend Kim. The three of us decided that an excellent foil visually for Kraven would be a bony old man. So, we selected The Vulture as our muse for Cory Baxter, and the rest is recent history.

Here's a drawing I did of Cory before we added him to the strip. The old-man look is obviously an homage to Adrian Toomes, the original Vulture. The 'going to school' costume is a reference to Blackie Drago, the second Vulture, who actually teamed up with Kraven the Hunter for a couple of issues.

A friend of mine pointed out that he bears a strong resemblance to Mr. Magoo, but I was honestly much more influenced by both Barney Rubble and the Bruce Timm version of Mr. Mxyzptlk!

Blacksad

What a fun Halloween it was! You can read about my adventures at the That's So Kraven! blog by clicking here. We had a friend dress up as Kraven the Hunter, and I carved Kraven's face into a pumpkin. There's also a new That's So Kraven! strip up, concluding the 'Miss Donna' storyline.

My friends and I also dressed as The Beagle Boys this year (thanks for the idea, Tom Spurgeon!) and we were featured in the Comics Alliance costume roundup. The excellent Chris Sims said we were the best group costume he saw this year; thanks, Chris! We love the Comics Alliance around these parts.

My fantastic friend Nick had a birthday last week. I love to draw birthday cards for my friends, so for Nick I selected a mutual favorite; John Blacksad and his sidekick Weekly. John is the star of Blacksad (by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido), an absolutely fantastic French bande dessinee about a black cat who works as a private investigator in the forties. The anthropomorphic animals are a joy to read, with oily reptiles substituting gangsters and polar mammals standing in the for the Ku Klux Klan. I highly recommend Dark Horse's trade paperback of the first three Blacksad stories (available at Amazon); it's a respectful and beautifully-produced collection.

Happy Halloween!

Have a good Halloween, everybody! I've got sweet plans; tonight is The Rocky Horror Picture Show and tomorrow is our semi-annual Lowered Expectations Halloween party. It's going to be a fun weekend.

You may or may not of heard of the amazing story of Machine of Death. Twitter went crazy this week when the book (filled with stories about a machine that tells you how you'll die) was released, as the marketing team of David Malki ! and Ryan North used their powers for good and helped their little book reach #1 on Amazon!

I bring this up for a very good reason; I illustrated one of the stories in the book! The story I illustrated is called "Friendly Fire" by Douglas J. Lane and it's a cracking read. I hope you have a chance to pick up the book. I'm honored to have taken part and I'm thrilled that I'm part of a #1 seller. If the I Saw You movie ever gets made, who knows how swollen my ego will become?

Plus, the book beat Glenn Beck's retarded little white-privilege screed for a day. How sweet is that? Sweet like honey, son.

As always, That's So Kraven! is updated this week. In this webisode, Spiderman and Donna decide Kraven's fate but it's not what you'll expect.

Sexy librarians with guns

Hopefully this will make up for my lack of posting last week. I was in Saskatchewan for my brother's wedding (which was lovely).

Before I went, I finished a commission that had been hanging over my head for quite awhile. Combining three of the hardest things for me to work with (guns, girls, and watercolors), this was an imposing challenge for me. I'm fair happy with the results, though, and here they are.

As ever, the Wednesday webisode of That's So Kraven! is online. ==>Click here<== to see how Donna and Spiderman resolve their war over Kraven.

Motörhead

"We are Motörhead, and we play rock and roll!"

For over thirty years, the gravel-throated warthog of rock known as Lemmy has fronted the heavy metal band Motörhead. He's bedded thousands of women, drank a bottle of Jack Daniel's every day, and written some of the greatest metal of all time. The band is known best for "Ace of Spades" (the fantastic rock classic you should go check out immediately) but they've got dozens of fantastic songs that have influenced artists in subgenres ranging from heavy to speed and thrash metal. Personal favorites include "Runaround Man", "Tear Ya Down", "Bomber", "Marching Off to War", and "We Are the Road Crew".

Motörhead's 20th album, The World is Yours, is coming out this year. Hopefully, that means a stop in Montreal for the band. It's where I first saw them, and I can't wait until Motörhead deafens me again.

The twelfth webisode of That's So Kraven! is online now; will Kraven be able to work both design jobs?

Why I Love Judas Priest

I love Judas Priest.

For those who are not in the know, Judas Priest is one of the world's foremost heavy metal bands. Formed in the late sixties, the members of Priest have been known as the "Metal Gods" since the eighties. Considered to be second only to the original lineup of Black Sabbath, Priest continue to put out albums and tour to this day, and they continue to be one of the strongest metal touring acts of all time. I love them.

Rob Halford, the fiery-falsettoed lead singer pictured above, single-handedly developed the S&M black leather-and-motorcycles look that metal has popularized. I had the pleasure of seeing him with his side project, Halford, at the Heavy MTL concert earlier this year, and it was a massive honor to be in his vicinity. With the passing of Ronnie James Dio, Halford remains one of, if not the, strongest voice in metal.

The thing that I really appreciate about metal is this: you can either do it, or you can't. If you can get up there, sing until your guts nearly rip themselves in half and play until your fingers burst into flames, you deserve to be up there. And Priest deserves to be up there; to me, they will be there, forever.

Vital albums (with links to tracks on YouTube):

British Steel (1980)
Screaming for Vengeance (1982)
Painkiller (1990)
Angel of Retribution (2005)

Webisode Eleven of That's So Kraven! is up. I really like this one, Trina did a great job on the script.

Abe Sapien and Archie Snow

Two guys with the initials "A.S.", and animals at their core.

Here's a drawing of Abe I drew originally as a commisson: I was happy with how it turned out and I decided to color it up and add it to the blog. Are you reading BPRD? It is the best comic.

I also received some rad fan art last week! Here's Archie Snow, as drawn by Stephen Morrow. You can find out more about Morrow at his deviantArt page.

The tenth webisode of That's So Kraven! went live last week. It's good to see that numbers are solid and that people are digging the strip. Thanks, everyone!

Montreal Comic Con roundup

What a show!

I was busy for nearly the whole show doing sketches and shooting the breeze with fans and pros alike. Thanks to each and every one of you for coming out. I took cell phone pictures of many of the sketches I did; here's a few of them.

Apocalypse

Archie Snow

Clayface (for Ryan, my second-best customer)

Dino Girl

Steele (from my friend Kim's upcoming graphic novella)

Commissioner Gordon (you should see the Kate Beaton sketch she has in this book)

Soldier from Halo (from memory)

Qi the Ink Monkey (from Proof)

Proof from Proof (battling a Hellhound)

Kraven Baxter and Spiderman (from That's So Kraven!)

Darth Vader (the adorableness is strong in this one)

Zombie on a tricycle

Death from Sandman (for Pat, my best customer)

Thanks for coming out, everyone. Big thanks to Oscar and Kevin for being our go-to guys at the show, and big thanks to Tim and Yanick for breaking bread with Trina and myself. (And Stone for sending fans our way, and Kim and Rebecca and Ari for everything.)

There's a new That's So Kraven! online. ==>Click here for the whim!<== Apparently, Spider-Man actually says the line in the new Shattered Dimensions game, so you know we've got to do something with that. Stay posted.

That's So Kraven! @ Montreal Comic Con

Whoa, busy busy busy.

It's Wednesday (Odin's day!) so that means two things: a new webisode of That's So Kraven! ==>Click here for Kravenventure!<== and a new sketchblog update from me. I have been busy so let's get to it.

The Montreal Comic Con is this coming weekend, and I will be there. I'm bringing along my usual mini-comics (as well as a brand-new one I will reveal on Friday, hopefully) but this year Trina and I will have Kraven merch. We're bringing the print "Kraven in Repose" and two full-size 14x18 paintings of Kraven Baxter and Mr. Spiderman. Check them out:

The original plan was to bring these three with us to Fan Expo last month, but now's your chance to snatch 'em up. If you're not going to be in Montreal send me an email and I'll see what I can do.

That's it! Gotta go, much to do and not much time to do it.

P.S. Here's three quickie commissions that were finished this week. TMNT!